The Sandbox Editor now controls project creation and management, making getting started with a new CRYENGINE project faster and giving developers more flexibility with this new streamlined and improved workflow.

Micro-facet Multi-layer Materials

This new feature advances the visual reproduction of metals and gives more artistic control over the creation of a range of materials. By describing materials as a stack of layers of varying thickness, each with different optical properties, users can, for instance, model a wet surface by defining a slightly absorptive layer on top, and spatially or temporally varying the thickness of that layer.

Area Lights

Area lights deliver a better representation of how light behaves than traditional punctual light sources. CRYENGINE’s new implementation makes use of pre-computed textures, which will calculate and model area lights far more accurately. It also allows for more flexibility when defining different kinds of light shapes. As of right now, the area lights are a part of the Point Light Component, so if you have point lights in your scene, you can easily change them to area lights

Tessellated Particle Ribbons

The Render Ribbons feature has a new option called Tessellated. This enables the graphics card’s tessellation stage to smooth the joints in ribbon particles by generating new polygons in a curved shape which is also adaptive to distance. This feature benefits ribbon effects, including trails from flying objects and organic objects like worms or vines.

Inter-Entity Constraint Points Storage

This feature is designed to create gears but also has other functions. It allows users to manually specify which entity will ‘own’ the constraint point, and since each constrained entity can have its own constraint point in place, it’s possible to create objects like belts with this feature.

Pressurized Closed Buoyant Cloth

Closed cloth shapes can now have internal pressure based on the current shape volume in this extension to the existing cloth entity.

Custom-Mesh Ropes

Ropes can now use bones and skinning and can be built from custom .cgf meshes, repeated several times. This enables a chain ‘rope’ to be created from a single link and allows for the rapid creation of vines or complex cables that fit naturally in the environment.

Full-Body Ragdoll IK

Ragdoll IK is a physics-aware, energy-based, full-body IK, which tries to satisfy constraints imposed on the physics skeleton with minimum effort energy-wise. The effect is similar to applying physics impulses to characters, except the results are computed instantly, without the physics thread running.

CRIWARE ADX2 Implementation

CRYENGINE is audio middleware agnostic, and we’re proud to integrate support for CRIWARE ADX2, a comprehensive and easy-to-use audio system. If your team is already familiar with ADX2, the transition to CRYENGINE is simple. Discover more about CRIWARE ADX2 at https://www.criware.com/en/products/adx2.html.

Behavior Tree UI

The new Behavior Tree UI is a GUI interface which enables users to quickly create complex behavior trees for AI, bringing NPCs and enemies to life. This tool was developed by the Hunt: Showdown team, bringing yet more production-proven technology to the engine.

Real-time ACE Editing Feedback

Users can now preview a middleware event in the right pane of the Audio Controls Editor without the need to connect it to a corresponding trigger first, improving CRYENGINE’s audio pipeline with instant feedback.

We can’t wait to see what you can achieve with CRYENGINE 5.6. As some of you might have noticed, we are already working on 5.6.1 - a hotfix that will address some minor issues we experienced during testing. This hotfix will be released soon, after we reviewed your early community feedback and had a chance to glance over your findings. CRYENGINE is a vast and powerful tool, so we appreciate your efforts to help us test every nook and cranny. If you want more insight into the hard work that has gone into this release, check out our in-depth preview articles focusing on specific areas in the engine, including physics, rendering, audio and Sandbox Editor and Launcher improvements.

Naturally, there are some things that, despite the efforts that go into a release of this , didn’t make it into the build for various reasons. We assure you that work continues, and we’ll keep you updated on the usual channels. We can't wait to hear your feedback about the new build, and we have started a dedicated CE 5.6 feedback thread. If you find a bug in the engine, please report it directly on GitHub which helps us to process the issue quickly and efficiently.